The present Invention relates to ultrasonic diagnostic equipment which provides organic visual display derived from probing ultrasonic waves echoed from a living body under examination; particularly it relates to such equipment in which the display is scrolled in correspondence with periodically elapsing changes in monitored organic data obtained for purposes of diagnosing organic functions of the living body.
As is well-known in the background to this technology, ultrasonic waves emitted via a probe containing ultrasonic transducers are beamed into a patient, typically for cardiovascular diagnosis. Ultrasonic signals are organically reflected from within the patient back to the probe, via which they are processed by the diagnostic equipment to provide information such as internal organic structure and bloodstream function.
The ultrasonic diagnostic equipment can provide M-mode display, i.e. a trace describing organic time-motion data wherein unilinearly scanned change In distance to a continually moving (typically pulsing) object of observation, e.g., the tissue interface of an organ, during an elapsed interval is recorded in a trace line periodically scrolled onto the display. Echoed ultrasound signals pulsed In diagnostic probing by the equipment can alternatively be processed through a Doppler mode, which takes advantage of the Doppler effect to analyze a sample volume in a region of a flowing medium, and through which, for example, display indicating rate and direction of flow in the bloodstream can be generated.
The speed at which such recordings are scrolled onto the display screen. (which corresponds to the "roll cycle" of data imaging) can be controlled in several gradations, whereby an operator can choose the scrolling speed which will allow proper diagnosis of the particular organic condition in a patient.
Conventionally, the equipment operating system therein necessitates that the operator must observe either the M-mode trace or Doppler-mode recording on the display in order to determine the correct scrolling speed. If the scrolling speed is incorrectly determined, or should it otherwise not be synchronized correctly, difficulties arise wherein, for example, recording patterns representing data on organic function in correspondence with heart rate appear only partially in one frame of the display, disabling complete diagnosis, or in which a frame is crowded by the recordings, to an extent making the information indistinguishable for diagnosis. Likewise, improper scrolling can interfere with measurement of bloodstream characteristics, wherein the display is scrolled at instances which do not correspond to those real-time elapsed organic changes required in order to achieve effective recording of bloodstream data.